Good

Afternoon

 Our Queer Language
With the English tongue we speak,
Why is 'break' not rhymed with
'freak' ?
Will you tell me if it is true,
We say 'sew' but likewise 'few'
And the maker of a verse,
Cannot cop his 'horse' with
'worse' ?
'Beard' sounds not the same as
'heard',
'Cord' is different from 'word';
cow is 'cow' but low is 'low';
'Shoe' is never rhymed with
'foe'.
Think of 'hose' and ‘does' and 'lose',
And of 'goose' and yet of ‘
choose',
Think of 'comb' and 'tomb' and
'bomb';
'Doll' and 'roll' , 'home' and
'some';
And since 'pay' is rhymed with
'say',
Why not 'paid' with 'said', I
pray ?
We have 'blood' and 'food' and
'good',
Would is not pronounced as
could
Wherefore done but gone and
lone
Is there any reason known?
Well, in short, it seems to me,
Sounds and letters disagree.
Phonology
 Phonology
• Is the study of how sound
 There are three types of the study of
sounds of language:

• Acoustic Phonetics – is the study of

physical properties of sound.
• Auditory Phonetics – is the study of the
way listeners perceive sound.
• Articulatory Phonetics – study of how
the vocal tracts produce the sounds.
• The orthography (spelling) of words in
misleading, especially in English.
• One sound can be represented by several
different combinations of letters. For
example, all of the following words
contain the same vowel sound: he,
believe, Lee, Caesar, key, amoeba, loudly,
machine, people, and sea.
 International Phonetics Alphabet
(IPA)
• The discrepancy between spelling and sounds
led to the formation of the International
Phonetics Alphabet (IPA).
• The symbols used in this alphabet can be used
to represent all sounds of all human
languages.
• Some speakers of English pronounce the
words which and witch differently, but if you
pronounce both words identically, just use w
for both words.
• And the sounds /ʌ/ and /ə/ are pronounced
the same, but the former is used in stressed
syllables, while the latter is used in unstressed
syllables.
• The production of any speech sound involves
the movement of air. Air is push through the
lungs, larynx (vocal folds) and vocal tract (the
oral and nasal activities).
• Sounds produced by using air from the lungs are
called pulmonic sounds. If the air is pushed out,
it is called egressive. If the air is sucked in, it is
called ingressive.
• Sounds produced by ingressive airstreams are
ejectives, implosives, and clicks. These are
common among African and American Indian
languages. The majority of languages in the world
use pulmonic egressive airstream mechanisms.
 Consonants
• Consonants are produced as air from the
lungs is pushed through the glottis (the
opening between the vocal cords) and
out the mouth.
• They are classified according to voicing,
aspiration, nasal/oral sounds, places of
articulation and manners of articulation.
 Voicing
• Whether the vocal folds vibrate or not.

• The sound /s/ is called voiceless because there

is no vibration, and the sound /z/ is called
voiced because the vocal folds do vibrate (you
can feel on your neck if there is vibration).
 Aspiration
• Only three sounds in English have aspiration,
the sounds /b/, /p/ and /t/.
• An extra puff of air is pushed out when these
sounds begin a word or stressed syllable.
• Hold a piece of paper close to your mouth
when saying the word pin and spin
• You should notice extra air when you say spin.
• Aspiration is indicated in writing with a
superscript h ,as in /p /.
 Nasal Sounds
• Sounds are produced when the velum (the
soft palate located in the back of the roof of
the mouth) is lowered and air is passed
through the nose and mouth.
 Oral sounds

• Are produced when the velum

is raised and air passes only
through the mouth.